HOW TO FIND CLIENTS FOR YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY BUSINESS

The age old question, how do I find clients for my photography business? You start you newborn photography business, you’re excited by creating a portfolio, taking newborn photography workshops and building a website but how on earth do you find clients for your photography business? Marketing is my least favourite part of running a photography business but once you put a plan into action it becomes easier!

BRANDING & PORTFOLIO BUILDING

Before you even think about how to find clients for your newborn photography business, you need to set up the foundation to your business. This includes crafting your art, taking workshops, doing model calls and sorting out your branding/ style. 

Branding

When small businesses start, it can be so exciting to create branding before you’ve done the hard work.

Often, the first thing we do is create a business name and logo, but these aren’t the most important when first putting your newborn photography business together.

Learning the basics of photography, investing in newborn photography education to learn how to pose and soothe newborns and setting up the foundations of your business.

After the foundation of your business is built, the fun part is the branding! Creating a business name, logo, a gorgeous website that carefully takes into account your branding and headshots of you are so important to tie together all your beautiful images and make your business memorable. 

Run Model Calls for Experience, Practice & Portfolio Building

What is a model call?

After you’ve learned about safety in newborn photography and all aspects of newborn photography, it is time to put your knowledge into practice and develop that portfolio with model calls!

A model call is a free session that you advertise as a free newborn photography session to parents with newborns (ideally newborns under one month old), so that you can practice posing and photographing for your portfolio in exchange for free photos for the parents. Parents should sign a model release allowing you to use the images of their child online and in advertising.

Why do we need model calls?

I highly recommend doing 10-15 model calls to develop your skills and create a wide range of variety in your portfolio to show clients exactly what your style is and to create a consistent portfolio. While it seems like a lot of work for free, I recommend doing many model calls to help you find and hone your style and help you develop a strong portfolio.

There is so much to practice with newborn photography, such as posing, safety, lighting, soothing newborns, editing and directing clients with family posing. Before you start charging it is important to develop these skills to a professional level and be able to produce a consistent gallery every session, no matter the situation. This is important so that clients know what to expect from your sessions in terms of safety, posing, editing and quality.

Clients need to be able to see what your style is from your website and social media (ie. Having bright and airy images, contrasted with dark, moody shots or warm images and some cool images, can be confusing for clients, as they won’t know what to expect in terms of the types of images they will receive.

Developing expertise in soothing, posing and photographing newborns helps you portray confidence and assurance with your clients, to ensure them that their newborn is in safe hands. Practice makes perfect!

How to Get Model Calls

To advertise for free model calls, put up a post in your local Facebook Parenting Group or contact other businesses that work with clients with newborns, such as prenatal yoga, belly casting, doulas, hypno-birthing, private scan clinics, etc, to ask them to recommend you to their clients for a free newborn photography session.

How to Make Your Style Clear With Model Calls

To advertise to your dream clients, you want to showcase your dream sessions. This involves showing your dream work in your portfolio by showcasing your favourite locations, the colours of the wardrobe they should be wearing, the style of your client, and the types of clothing they should be wearing. Use free model calls to style these sessions and have full control over wardrobe, locations, etc.

For example, if you want to photograph artistic, tattooed women showing off their bare bellies by the seaside, then you need to showcase these women in your portfolio.

Create A Portfolio

Once you have done enough model calls (once you feel you can deliver consistent, reliable galleries every session), it is now time to put together your portfolio. This should be on your website to demonstrate your style, what clients can expect from your work, and only include your best images.

Are you a light and airy newborn photographer? A dark and moody newborn photographer? A posed newborn photographer? You want to make this very clear on your website so that clients can see what they will get when deciding to proceed with a newborn session with you. 

FIND CLIENTS FOR YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY BUSINESS BY MARKETING

Help Your Newborn Photography Business Get Found With Marketing and Find Clients. 

Marketing is often the most overlooked when new photography businesses start but having a marketing plan in place is the key to finding clients. 

Create Your Website To Help Clients Find You

The best way to find newborn photography clients? You need a strong website with strong SEO. The next most important aspect of your photography business is the website. A website is so important for marketing and professionalism. Many new photographers invest all their energy into social media, and they are missing a huge chunk of targeted traffic that can come to them through their website SEO and create a professional brand that helps answer client questions and helps clients get to know the photographer and their work. 

I recommend a WordPress site by Kadence and StyleCloud, as they make it possible to target your keywords for SEO. Your goal as a photographer is to be found for your location and your genre of photography.

 For example, I mainly target “London Newborn Photography” with my SEO keywords, and WordPress makes it possible for me to work on this myself without having to hire a website designer. Yes, creating a website is hard and a huge investment, but it is so important and not something that can be skipped. 

Instagram/ social media might feel like the answer, but what good is going viral and having 1 million followers if none of them live near you and can’t turn into clients? A clear website helps you target clients who are actively searching for your target keywords in your location.

Google Search Console

After your website is complete, signing up for Google Search Console is often one of the most important actions missing when new photographers create their website for SEO.

Often, they can’t understand why they aren’t showing up on Google when they’ve been blogging and using keywords. But unless you’ve signed up for Google Search Console and submitted a sitemap, it can be difficult for Google to find you all on its own. 

Google Search Console allows you to submit webpages (and blog posts) individually, so they can be crawled and logged faster by Google so you start showing up quickly. It also allows you to see the number of visitors you’ve had, what blog posts are ranking well and if your site is having any errors. It is so important to sign up for Search Console at the same time you finish your website. 

Google Business Profile 

A helpful way for clients to find your photography business is to set up your Google Business Profile. A Google Business Profile is essential to your small business as it helps show your location on Google Maps to those searching in your location. It acts as a mini website that Google prioritises at the beginning of search results. You can list your website, include photos, services you offer, opening hours, location and clients can leave reviews. 

A Google Business Profile enables clients to leave you reviews, which in turn enables you to build trust with those seeking your services. Setting up a Google Business Profile helps you show up in searches, as Google also pulls search results from GBP as well as websites.

Social Media 

New photographers may think that if they simply post on social media (like Instagram or TikTok) that clients will come flocking to them. Unfortunately, social media can be incredibly tough to crack, and while it is a helpful piece of the marketing puzzle, it is important to have many venues of marketing in your repertoire.

SEO To Help Clients Find Your Photography Business

So how else should you market? In my online workshop and my 1-2-1 workshops, I emphasise the importance of focusing on your website and SEO as you are getting location-based, targeted warm leads that come to you through Google, as potential clients are actively looking for that service. SEO might seem incredibly overwhelming, but there is so much information out there that you can research how to do it yourself. 

Partner With Businesses In Your Niche So Clients Can Find You

Another way to get warm leads is to partner with businesses that have a similar target market. For newborn photography businesses, this could be prenatal yoga teachers, hypnobirthing and antenatal classes. Work out an arrangement to get these businesses to recommend you, perhaps offering a discount to their clients. 

Help Your Newborn & Family Photography Business Get Found By Clients By Advertising

Investing in your business comes in all forms when starting up: newborn photography training, buying a camera, building your website and buying beautiful dresses for your Client Closet. However, many photographers are hesitant to invest in their business by advertising and want to market for free.

While referrals, SEO and social media might work for some in the long run, it is hard to gain traction with them at the beginning. Investing in paid advertising helps to get your business off the ground and build your brand. 

What advertising can you pay for? Google ads, TikTok ads, Instagram and Facebook ads are a few, just to start! They are worth it to get your business going, but they do require research on how to do them properly. 

HOW TO FIND CLIENTS FOR YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY BUSINESS CHECKLIST

1.) Website- Optimise SEO to increase Google ranking 

2.) Advertise on Instagram, Facebook, Google, TikTok Network with Maternity Services such as Doulas, Lactation Consultants, Prenatal Yoga etc 

3.) List your business in local directories like Mumsnet, Netmums, NCT, local Facebook groups, BabyCentre etc. 

4.) Run giveaways or model calls to build word of mouth momentum (having a referral program can help encourage people to recommend you) 

5.) Offer discounted or free headshots to local businesses in your niche- they can link your website and will think to recommend you 

6.) Build relationships with local hospitals, birth centres and private scan clinics (offer to put up framed prints of your work on display). 

7.) Encourage repeat clients with milestone sessions and email marketing

8.) Attend or host local baby fairs 

9.) Offer to photograph a local parenting event or baby group for free 

10.) Get featured in blogs or magazines that target expecting parents (I don’t recommend paying for ads in print publications though)